CHAPTER XIII.—(Continued.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1985, 28 March 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER Xlll.—(Continued.)

11 Poor woman 1 it is to be hoped she may never know the truth if the child is really dead." Daniel climbed up the well-known Bide of the gully, and paused only when he stood upon the little plateau where he had left Resignation sitting upon the rock. How awful it was to the poor, affectionate boy to see there upon the bent grass and leaves the impress of the child's feet where he had last seen her, and a drooping spray of fern she had dropped from her hand ! It was a feature of the child's sweet character, the fond love she bore to every leaf of the forest and to every flower of the field. No one could ever recall having met her that she did not carry some specimen of her forest or garden treasures— a spray of wattle from the side of the creek, a bunch of pale eucalyptus blossom, a white roie from her father's grave, or maybe a simple cluster of flowering grasses. Daniel lifted the bit of fern, as he knelt upon the grass where Redignation had rested, and laying the fern against his face he bent down to the rock, and wept suoh ft passion of tears aa he would have been ashamed to let anyone, even his mother, see him shed. Daniel's ideas of prayer were very limited, but he had been accustomed to hear his lost playmate talk so intimately of the joys and happiness of that heaven she never doubted her dead father was enjoying, that he thought only of her now as another one of those in shining garments who gathered everlasting flowera by everflowing waters in the the presence of that mighty Essence of all Creative power we know as "God." Weeping there with his face among the withered fern on the chill damp reck, his heart waa very lowly at the great footstool, where the poor lad felt his own weakness and helplessness to the very uttermost ; but Daniel had no word 3 to put his heart's cry for help mto — do you think that Daniel's aspirations went not up to Him, whose ears are ever open to prayer, as strongly as though they had been shouted from a platform to a chorus of Hallelujahs from men and women who do not often enough recall that—" But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and shut the uoor?" Well, you see, that may be a matter of opinion, but I believe that such unspoken aspirations as Daniel's on that damp spot of grass go straighter to God who " seeth in secret" than any irreverent shouting will ever do, no matter in what words of eloquence the unseemly noises may be made. The boy rose as he heard ascending steps, and wiped the tears from his eyes. There was not one of the five men who soon stood before the rock but sympathised with Daniel, and he knew it, though Mr. Pollard's hand alone waa placed caressingly on his •houlder. " It was here you left her, Daniel?" "Yes, sir, sitting on that rock; and see, here is a bit of the fern Bhe held in her hand." "Which way did you come to get down here, my boy ?" "We came from the cemetery. We struck off the cemetery road by a path over the hill. We often came here, but ihere is a shorter way to go home from this. I will show you if you come." " Stop a moment, Daniel. Have you no idea what might have induced Resignation to leave this after she had sent you down to see what was going on in the claim ? She said she would wait for you, didn't she ?" " Yea. I don't know why the went unless something frightened her. Resignation was easily frightened. A sudden noise would make her tremble." " Was there any noise yesterday ?" Mr. Pollard aBked of his companions, " there waa the cheering, but that would not alarm her." " I think she had left this before the cheering," one of the men said. " I noticed that she wad there, and I noticed that she had gone about the time I first observed Daniel here on the claim." " Do you think she could have heard Father James ? " asked Laonard, " he shouted 1 Blood 1' loud enough to horrify anyone." "It is possible," said Mr. Pollard. " Now supposing she had heard that shout of Father James, what way would Bhe most likely have taken Daniel? " " Straight for home I should think. And Resignation might have been afraid of Father James, for she did not like him. We met the priest several times, and she used to get paler and stop speaking when she saw him." "Go on, my boy, and we will follow. Keep on the way you think she would be the most likely to take." Along by the side of the hill until it dropped into the slope of its spur the boy went quickly. There was no actually marked path, but the way was not difficult. Graasy patches studded with granite ; clusters of green wattle or low gum sapling 3; little rifts down which the winter rains had run in heavy itreams, but where fern tufts now flourished in the moist deposit— all these were passed without one trace of that they had lost, and at last Daniel stood at a spot where a broken traok from the gully led past him toward the cemetery road. At this spot there was a soft alluvial deposit, swept down from (ho hills, round a

perfect tangle of rocks and well grown paplings. .Through the thick bushes and undergrowth here the boys eyes detected what seemed to be the track of some animal that might have, hard piesscd, broken or torn a way through the bushes. On Dan's right hand was the spot I am describing ; on his left a similar but more scattered collection of rocks and shrubs, and tiees, and before him, at a little distance, wound, up 'the same hill on which " St. Herricks" lay, the cemetery road. " I did not notice that yesterday," the boy said, pointing to the broken bushes, " and there are footsteps here in the soft." " These are the footsteps of a man," George Clarke decided, as he stooped to examine them. "There are no signs of a girl's track." " Nor of a dog's — they have not come this way." It was Mr. Pollard who spoke, he was fol lowing the footmarks back through the undergrowth, but they were soon lost on the harder ground. This track has turned suddenly just here," one of the brothers Doran said. •' Look, George ; it seems as if the man, whoever he was, saw something suddenly up to the left there, and struck for it— let us follow the tracks up hill." " There are thp marks of two men's feet in the soft ground there," Mr. Pollard returned, "but go on— l am sure we shall not iiad any traces of the child without finding traces of the dog " Up a sort of natural path among the undergrowth, they went following what appeared to be hurried footsteps, only visible here and there where the grass wa3 sparse and the shaded soil damp, and then they came against the body and upper branches of a well-grown and leafy young box tree that lay across the path. " This has not been long down," said onB of the men, as he went round the crown of it, " and it has covered up the tracks ; let's see where it has come from." The stem had been half cut through with a knife, and the bushy top bent forcibly down until it lay broken on the ground, yet still but partially severed from the parent wood. It was the easiest thing in the world for one man's hands to lift the light yount, r tree and lay bare the spot it had concealed. And what lay on that spot ? What was it that the men gathered round and bent over with whispered words and horrified faces ? What was it that made little Daniel weak and faint, and grasp at a bu=,h for support ? Ah, it was a trampled spot, where the impresa of a dog's big pawB were plainly visible, as well as the shape of a little girl's boot, and in the middle of it was a pool of blood, with the night-damp in drops on its coagulated surface. They looked at the terrible thing, and then in each other's faces, until Leonard passed his arm around poor little Daniel, and tried to whisper comfort to him. " Try to be a man, my poor lad : id may not be so bad as you fear." "It can't be worse ; my dream is true ; we shall find her among the sand and ferns," he gasped, as he opened the hand he held clutched to his breast. " What is it ? " all asked, and Daniel answered them, " It is a bit of Resignation's dress ; it was hanging on this briar." A bit of pele blue cambric, torn jaggedly from the skirt of the lost child, and damp from the hea*y dews of the past nig'it. " There must be more traces ; let us look carefully until we find them." And every spot was examined vainly until on the leave 3 of a low bush, farther up the hill, spots of blood were detected. Then, again, there was a break in the thick undergrowth, as if some person had pushed his mad way through every obstacle, leaving a broad trail of trampled leave 3 and branches, until a broad patch of grass, surmounted by a heap of rocks, was reached. Here there was no trace of foot or gore on the short velvety verdure. The now warm sun shone upon the grey stones that were golden and green in patches, where the sturdy moss flourished on their sides. Under the granites, where the attrition and decay of years upon years had woni their side 3, micasparkled Hand lay white and bright, and in the nooks among the sand many tufts of ferns grew and flourished. Daniel, the boy, pointed to the graceful fronds as he murmured some words about his dream, but there was no trace of the lost one on the level around the rocks. Up among the clefts, where the ferns grew in damp, sheltered nooks, the poor boy climbed to whcie, on the summit three or four low honeysuckle trees grew together, emulous of the sun, and there, prone on the rocks, with his face on the sand and his senses oblivious of his great sorrow, they found him when he wad miabed and followed. "He must have found her," Mr. Pollard said, " and yet there is nothing here." " Alaa 1 tnero is," replied Leonard, as he bent his face near the unoonscious Daniel ; " and it id the sight that has stricken the boy." One and another stooped to see the sad sight that had met the young Iri-ihman's gaze, &i with a shudder of horror, he raised himself, and one and another rose, as he had risen, with white faces and terrible eyed. Indeed, it was a sight to shock the most hardened, and there were none but pitiful hearts to feel it at that moment. " Draw the boy back and let him remain as he is for a bit ; this is no thing for him to see." Mr. Pollard said this as he got up from the grass. " Who has done it ?" cried George Clark. "Itis a foul and awful deed ; who has done it?" " Whoever did deserves to die like a dog," one of the brothers Doran said ; " and I would think it a just and lawful thing to kill him with my own right hand." " What are we to do ? I think it ought not to be touched until the police are here." " You think right. You know that Elli3 has been called away, but Dempster, the other constable, is available; he was to be in the Gully at 10 o'clock. " It is not far from that now," returned Mr. Pollard, as he consulted his -vatch. " Some of you go down to meet him. I will wait here with the boy until you return." " And I," added Leonard ; " Daniel is recovering. Daniel, my boy, you are better." " Was it anotner dream ? Oh, no, no ; it is true. I Baw her, I saw her among the sand and ferns." " He must not see it again," Leonard said, pityingly. " I will take him down to the tent, where he can have some restorative. Come, Daniel, you must come away. Lean on me, and try to remember your poor mother ; she would grieve to see you like this." Mr. Pollard stood looking after the young gentleman as he tenderly guided the stricken boy until the bushes intervened, and then he turned again to scan the spot where Eesignation had been hidden. I have said already that the rocks were piled up there, and that low honeysuckle trees grew almost on the summit. Under one of those trees there was a deep fissure where the decay of years, aided by the rain and wind of heaven, had made a deep root-hole for the straggling growth, and above this fissure some shrubd had reared their thick boughs where two rocks leaned partially againct each other. One had only to part these boughs to see, lying on the sandy floor below, the dead, mangled body of the lost child, gentle Resignation St. Herrick. She lay as Bhe had evidently been thrown down, in a helpless, limp-looking heap, with

the ferns crushed under her, and the pale diesa dabbled with blood. Further examination showed in the elender white throat a haggled gash, and the blue marks of rude hands on her poor arms. Her golden pale hair too had been severed in peveral places, and by the same cruel knife, doubtless, that had deprived her of life, for there was blood on the locks that were left scattered around her, as though vainly trying to hide from the light the ciuel deed that had been done. " It was not a man, but a devil, who did this," murmured Mr. Pollard aloud, " and Doran is right, it would be a just deed to rid the world of such a monster."